Police seized a £3.7 million Ferrari in London, and an officer drove it away in sunglasses
The Metropolitan Police seized 90 vehicles worth more than £8 million during a three-day crackdown on uninsured and anti-social driving in central London, the highest total in the operation's five-year history. The star of the haul was a Ferrari Monza SP2 worth £3.7 million, around €4.3 million, stopped less than a day after arriving in the country
Roughly 120 officers, supported by the Motor Insurers' Bureau, ran the operation across Hyde Park, Kensington and Chelsea between 7 and 9 August, targeting uninsured drivers and anti-social or dangerous driving. The Ferrari Monza SP2, one of only 499 built, had been imported from Saudi Arabia and was in the country for less than a day before it was pulled over in Mayfair, less than half an hour into its journey. Its driver held only a provisional licence and no insurance.
The Ferrari that could not simply be winched away
The Monza SP2 has no roof and no proper windscreen by design, a deliberate barchetta layout rather than a fault, the same missing windscreen one Florida dealer tried reversing with a bolt-on conversion earlier this year. That design left officers with a genuine problem: the flatbed reserved for seized vehicles was not really an option for a car with nowhere to brace it safely. Instead, one officer drove it back to the pound himself, sunglasses on, escorted by patrol cars and the now-empty recovery truck, past Marble Arch and through the streets of Mayfair. Photos and video of the drive went viral within hours, with onlookers stopping to film a police officer piloting a multimillion-pound Ferrari through central London.
The rest of the haul
The Monza SP2 was not the only notable seizure. A Lamborghini Revuelto worth around £450,000, roughly €525,000, was reportedly the first car taken during the operation, and officers also impounded a Rolls-Royce Wraith and a Porsche 911 GT3, alongside Aston Martins, McLarens and a run of high-end BMWs, Mercedes and Range Rovers. Fifteen of the 90 vehicles were seized immediately under powers that let officers impound a car on the spot for disruptive use, rather than issuing a warning first.
A five-year record, and arrests that went well beyond parking tickets
The operation's haul was the largest, by both vehicle count and value, in its five-year history. It also produced a string of arrests unrelated to the cars themselves: one man was found with 19 fraudulent bank cards and £2,500 in cash on suspicion of money laundering and handling stolen goods, another was arrested with £5,500 in cash on suspicion of possessing drugs with intent to supply, and further arrests followed for harassment and an immigration offence. Special Chief Inspector Geoff Tatman, who led the operation, said, “We're arresting these drivers and seizing their cars so we can keep our roads safe.”
AutoNext Take
The image of a Met officer cruising a roofless £3.7 million Ferrari past Marble Arch in sunglasses is the kind of moment that writes its own headlines, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying it. It is a rare case of a police seizure photo actually being fun to look at.
The substance underneath it is less charming. A car this rare, this expensive and this newly arrived in the country was being driven on a provisional licence with no insurance whatsoever, on public roads in one of the busiest parts of London. Money buys a very good car. It does not buy an exemption from the rules that keep everyone else on those same roads safe, and this operation exists precisely because too many people driving supercars in central London still seem to think it does.
